Nidhi Goyal lost her eyesight at the age of 15 years. You might be sad, but 16 years later, at age of 31, Nidhi raised herself as one of the happiest and most positive people one will ever meet, which also explains the latest addition to her already impressive list of titles of “being India’s first visually challenged stand-up comedian”.

What inspired Nidhi Goyal to be a standup comedian?

When working as an activist on gender justice and disability rights at both the international and national levels, Nidhi never planned to be a comedian, but the jokes were always there around her, inspired by her own personal experiences and which were meant to be her family and friends only.

Sharing her experiences, Nidhi said, “My family and friends loved how I narrated my personal experiences and adventures”. After one catching up session, my fellow activist and friend, Pramada Menon, provided me a deadline of six months to get a performance ready.

So, I prepared myself, noted down all of those personal incidents of mine that were on the top of my mind and got a final script composed. The unique part is that everything you catch and laugh about is based on a personal experience, a part of my life or that of my friends.

As a regular activist, I got a chance to interact with a number of people with some disabilities. So my scripts involved a collage of my and their stories.

A large section of Nidhi’s performance focuses on sexuality and relationships within the disabled community. She covers arranged marriage encounters to sex and PDA, nothing is off-limits.

“Within the hour’s long performance, I talk about being single and wanting to meet someone.” Also, I share the experiences I’ve had meeting people and their families. Again, these all are real incidents of my life. It’s hilarious how people give reactions when I tell them that, yes, I am blind and I still looking forward to a relationship. Says Nidhi Goyal

People don’t ask me if I’m disabled. They ask me if I have a problem. My response: No, do you? 😉

Renowned standup comedian Aditi Mittal introduced Nidhi Goyal to the world with her famous series, Bad Girls. Nidhi’s first performance in February this year was a prompt hit, on both online and offline platforms.

Nidhi says, “I know people get uncomfortable the moment I walk on stage”. They say “oh shit, is she blind? She’s blind, what she is doing here? What if she wants help?” and that explains everyone’s first instinct towards disability.

It’s not even pitying, it’s discomfort. ‘We don’t understand what to do with these people’. ‘We don’t know even we don’t want to know’. It’s a shame that obligation is always on the disabled person to make the other sense comfortable.

I treat my disability as an essential part of life and well deal with it the same way how people deals with their any difficulties. “when we are happy with a bigger piece of cake, we should accept a bigger disability too, it’s as simple as that”.

Sharing her incident, Nidhi said, “I started losing my eyesight at age of 15 when I was diagnosed with a serious problem of retinitis pigmentosa, a set of eye problems that affect the retina. At first, I was maybe a little uncomfortable then, but soon enough, I was back to not concerned and being comfortable in my own skin. I used to be a girl who wore a sports watch and dressed in a salwar-suit to college.

Amaira is a marketing consultant and fitness enthusiast. Her experience allows her to write on various marketing, health and business topics including, growth hacking, marketing tips, and business management. At present, she is a regular contributor for GetInsightz to aid readers with useful information.

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